Global Tribe: Technology, Spirituality and Psytrance #books #travellers #trance #geekgirl

From the author: Graham St. John

This book has been a long time in the making, written in many locations, with respect and thanks due to many, and with the months counting down to publication this year I thought I would hook you up with the new Facebook page for Global Tribe: Technology, Spirituality and Psytrance (Equinox 2012).

global-tribe-book-cover

Book Synopsis.

Trance events have an uncanny ability to capture an era, and captivate an audience of travellers occupying the eternal theatre of the dance floor. As this book shows, the tendency within psytrance is to thwart the passage of time, to prolong the night, for those who adopt a liminal lifestyle. Amid the hustle and hubris of the psytrance carnival there is a peaceful repose that you sometimes catch when you’ve drifted into a sea of outstretched limbs, bodies swaying like a field of sunflowers in a light breeze. And you feel intense joy in this fleeting moment. You are the moment. You are inside the flow. You are all. Embodying the poetry of dance, you are living evidence that nothing lasts. And this is a deep revelation of the mystical function of trance. It is difficult to emerge from this little death, because one does not want the party to end. But it must end, even so that it can recommence-so that one can return to repeat the cycle.

The result of fifteen years of research in over a dozen countries, this book applies a sharp lens on a little understood global dance culture that has mushroomed all over the world since its beginnings in the diverse psychedelic music scenes flourishing in Goa, India, in the 1970s and 1980s. The paramount expression of this movement has been the festival, from small parties to major international events such as Portugal’s Boom Festival, which promotes itself as a world-summit of visionary arts and trance, a “united tribe of the world”. Via first-hand accounts of the scenes, events and music of psychedelic trance in Australia, Israel, Italy, the UK, the US, Turkey and other places, the book thoroughly documents this transnational movement with its diverse aesthetic roots, multiple national translations and internal controversies. As a multi-sited ethnography and an examination of the digital, chemical, cyber and media assemblage constituting psytrance, the book explores the integrated role that technology and spirituality have played in the formation of this visionary arts movement and shows how these event-cultures accommodate rites of risk and consciousness, a complex circumstance demanding revision of existing approaches to ritual, music and culture.

Contents

Ch 1. Transnational Psyculture
Ch 2. Experience, the Orient and Goatrance
Ch 3. The Vibe at the End of the World
Ch 4. Spiritual Technology: Transition and its Prosthetics
Ch 5. Psychedelic Festivals, Visionary Arts and Cosmic Events
Ch 6. Freak Out: The Trance Carnival
Ch 7. Psyculture in Israel and Australia
Ch 8. Performing Risk and the Arts of Consciousness
Ch 9. Riot of Passage: Liminal Culture and the Logics of Sacrifice
Ch 10. Nothing Lasts

Preorder book from Equinox.

Prologue on Facebook.

Rayna Fahey’s politically dangerous exhibition – It’s Never Too Late To Mend #radical #craft #Melbourne #geekgirl

it's-never-too-late-to-mend

It’s Never Too Late To Mend – an exhibition of Rayna Fahey’s politically dangerous and exciting application of conscious craft love. A survey of Fahey’s commitment to the radical application of craft through the method of cross stitching.

Editor of radicalcrossstitch.com, co-founder of the infamous Craft Cartel and founder of the Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle, Fahey is best known for reclaiming ugly industrial settings and transforming them through conscious craft love.

Her work has featured in exhibitions across Australia, Aotearoa, Sweden and Lithuania. Fahey was also featured in the critically acclaimed documentary, Making It Handmade which screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival and on ABC2.

Making It Handmade will have a special screening at the Incinerator Gallery with its director Anna Brownfield in attendance.

Fahey said her work uses seemingly innocuous craft to communicate challenging concepts about society and our environment, in a thought provoking manner. ”In light of the recent resurgence in the popularity of craft, this exhibition is not only about asking questions about the reasons we craft, but is also a call out to the craft community to strive for excellence in design.

“I am truly honoured to be pressing these discussions in a building connected to such a strong design history of function and beauty.

“The exhibition challenges traditi onal views on the nature of craft and will allow audiences to get a fresh perspective on its use in the 21st century.

“Kitsch and irony have been used by artists for decades to convey their message, but I reject kitsch and instead pay upmost respect to the history and traditions of craft.“

It’s Never Too Late To Mend celebrates ‘domestic arts’ as more than just a passive pastime, showing that conscious craft is an active, intelligent and even politically dangerous craft,” said Miss Fahey.

Just as the Incinerator use to be used for burning rubbish and is now a gallery, Rayna Fahey is using traditional craft to make contemporary statements on the world around us.

It’s Never Too Late To Mend will have a twilight opening on Friday 13 April at 6pm. The exhibition will run until Sunday 13 May.

Making It Handmade will screen on Thursday 19 April at 7pm at the Incinerator Gallery.

Incinerator Gallery
180 Holmes Road
Moonee Ponds VIC 3039
incineratorgallery.com.au

“Barbielicious” LEGOs. Does LEGO design only for boys? Or does it sell stereotypes? #dontdumbdown #lego #geekgirl

space-rocket-lego

Iconic toy brand LEGO recently launched a new line of toys meant just for girls — but two young women, Bailey Shoemaker-Richards and Stephanie Cole, think the products are unfairly “dumbed down” for girls.

The new line is called LadyFigs, and it’s made up of busty, pastel-colored figurines that come with interests like shopping, hair-dressing, and lounging at the beach. The uninspired toys even come with pre-assembled environments — so there is no assembly (or imagination) required.

Bailey and Stephanie say they’re frustrated that LEGO is pushing outdated gender roles on girls and cheating them of the opportunity to build and discover. So they took to the internet, blogging about what they call the new “Barbielicious” LEGOs and petitioning the toy company to lose the sexist LadyFigs line and go back to empowering both boys and girls with its original products. Click here to sign Bailey and Stephanie’s petition today.

LEGO hasn’t always thought its toys were only for boys. In the 1980s, the company was actually celebrated for a major advertising campaign that spotlighted a young girl and her LEGO creation with the tagline “What it is is beautiful.” But since then, LEGO reversed course and decided to market its products only to boys.

The company claims its research shows girls just don’t appreciate the original LEGO line. But Bailey and Stephanie argue that with LEGO’s renewed emphasis on boys — featuring only boys in its ads and stocking products in the boys’ aisles of toy stores — it’s no wonder young girls wouldn’t think LEGOs were meant for them.

Bailey and Stephanie’s fight to get LEGO to return to its gender-neutral toys is already making waves, with the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Time weighing in on the issue. But LEGO is stubbornly holding its ground and told Business Week that the LadyFigs launch is a “strategic” move to “reach the other 50 percent of the world’s children,” as if girls have never been part of LEGO’s focus.

Public pressure can prove LEGO wrong. If enough people sign Bailey and Stephanie’s petition, it could convince LEGO that the new LadyFigs are bad business and the company should return its focus to empowering boys AND girls with toys that inspire creativity and innovation.

Tell LEGO to stop selling out girls — sign Bailey and Stephanie’s petition today.

Editor’s note: Not everyone agrees and there have been some pretty funky designs built by gurls & boys using the new vibrant brick colours.. (One used them to build a spaceship.) I think it’s a personal choice if you want to condemn LEGO for being driven by what their marketing department tells them what girls actually want. LEGO has tried to counter-act the bad press (even though it’s damage control, rather than genuine insight): and it never hurts to make them think about delivering product to a mixed market with several different goals and interests.GG xox

Mardi Grass Mind Candy #Nimbin #hippies #pot #maryjane #woohoo #geekgirl

Mardi Grass Mind Candy
Midday – 6pm Saturday 30 April
NIMBIN TOWN HALL

MCs: Miss Guidance, Neil Pike & JulianR
…
Join Pragmatic Visionaries & Solipsistic Psychonauts for an afternoon of Debate, Discussion & the Occasional Stoned Rave

Outrageous Truths & Believable Lies!

Mind candy? Afternoon distraction or hours of brain bending banter? You decide! This year the Nimbin Mardi Grass is playing host to a series of panel discussions to be held in the Town Hall from midday to 6pm on Saturday 30 April, focusing on the big issues: the legal, medical, spiritual, cultural & political aspects of plant life. For this reason we’ve assembled a cast of academics, intellectuals, professionals, politicians, public servants, activists, hippys, poets, career bullshit artists and just plain ol’ troublemakers to stir the pot (as it were).

Mardi Grass Mind Candy is excited to announce that Paul Cubitt, President of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition [LEAP] Australia will speak on our panel discussing policing choices. The panels will also feature international guest speaker, Dr Robert Melamede, CEO and President of Cannabis Science, Inc., as well as Australian drug law reform luminaries, Sandra Kanck, SA spokesperson for Families and Friends of Drug Law Reform, Prof Paul Wilson, Chair of Criminology, Bond University, and Dr Alex Wodak, President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation. A full listing of our other magnificent speakers appear in the program below.

Whilst we recognise the ultimate futility of spending too much time trying to talk about what is essentially a non-verbal experience (getting high), there’s also quite a few pot-related topics that do need some discussion:

Midday – 1pm
THE GREEN GODDESS
Entheogenic cultures can increase benefits and reduce risks, offering a different approach to Western-style legal regulation
FACILITATOR: Dr Des Tramacchi
PANELISTS: Greg Kasarik [Community of Infinite Colour], Frank Kirk, Dr Bob Melamede [Cannabis Science, Inc.]

1 – 2pm
POLICE FORCE OR POLICE SERVICE?
What is good policing? What choices do police have?
FACILITATOR: Prof Paul Wilson, Bond University
PANELISTS: Steve Bolt, Paul Cubitt [Law Enforcement Against Prohibition], Dr John Jiggens, Sandra Kanck [Families and Friends of Drug Law Reform], Dr Alex Wodak [Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation]

2 – 3pm
BONG ON AUSSIE, BONG ON ~ DID CANNABIS CULTURE GET DUMBED DOWN?
Is anyone still getting high or are we just getting wasted?
FACILITATOR: JulianR
PANELISTS: David Hallett, Greg Kasarik [Community of Infinite Colour], Frank Kirk, Dr Bob Melamede [Cannabis Science, Inc.], Neil Pike [Pagan Love Cult], Alan Salt [HEMP Embassy]

3 – 4pm
LEGISLATING FOR LEGOLAND?
How do we react to drug policy?
FACILITATOR: Erik van Keulen
PANELISTS: Stephanie Clerc [Happy High Herbs], Mulga, Jake Potkonyak, [Students for Sensible Drug Policy], Torsten Wiedemann [Koda Phytorium]

5 – 6pm
HOW TO LEGALIZE DRUGS?
How can we proact in the drug policy discourse?
FACILITATOR: Erik van Keulen
PANELISTS: Tony Bower [Mullaways Medical Cannabis Pty Ltd], Dr Graham Irvine, Sandra Kanck [Families and Friends of Drug Law Reform], Dr Andrew Katelaris, Joe King, Dr Alex Wodak [Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation]See More

Saturday, April 30 · 12:00pm – 6:00pm
(be there or be straight!)

Elusive Light exhibition #WA #wabi-sabi #arts #geekgirl

Elusive Light by Stephen Armitstead & Lia McKnight…Exploring many meanings of the word light, using objects, photography, video and sound.

Exhibition runs until 10 April 2011. Artist talk 2nd April.
Heathcote Museum & Gallery (Western Australia)

elusive-light

This exhibition of work by Lia McKnight and Stephen Armitstead is about turning glimpses into long looks. It is about finding beauty in the fragile and transitory, and then trying to hold it for long enough so everyone can see it. It is about revealing the contradictions between our aesthetic observations and their ultimate expression as art. At the heart of all art practice that gives form to ideas there are contradictions They are the intractable relationship of opposites that are at the centre of our attempts to unravel what we observe and then explain to the world.

Light is at the heart of this exhibition, but not the constant, steady illumination that we associate with naturalistic painting. In naturalism the assumption is that the world is stable and ordered and that art’s great task is to reveal that to us. Naturalism emphasises the solidity of objects, their permanence, and by implication, their authority; but as soon as one grasps the artful contradictory fiction of naturalism – for the world isn’t stable and permanent – we are free to explore other ways in which the complexities of the world can reveal themselves. This exhibition encourages us to look at the world differently, to appreciate the seemingly inconsequential and to gain pleasure in unravelling how we have learned to look. It is in this way that we can re-imagine how the world can be understood.

The artists have drawn widely on a set of experiences about ideas and materials that are contemporary, but a contradiction of art making is that the present can be understood by looking backwards over its shoulder at what happened in the past. A thousand years ago in China, the poet and critic Su Shi wryly observed the futility of trying to understand the value of art in terms of how it did or didn’t resemble the world.

For Su and others like him, the world had to be transformed by the artist through a work of art that revealed how the artist had been touched, physically and emotionally, by the world. This is a contradiction as big as naturalism’s but it gives us another perspective on how to understand how McKnight and Armitstead are working. McKnight has been drawn to the Japanese aesthetic of Wabi-sabi where beauty is found in the fragility and transience of the materials and the combination of hopefulness and sadness.

McLuhan Galaxy 2011 Understanding Media Today #Barcelona #geekgirl

Call for Papers :: Deadline 7 January 2011

The International Conference McLuhan Galaxy Barcelona 2011 Understanding Media,Today will be held in Barcelona 23 – 25 May 2011 to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Canadian thinker Marshall McLuhan. The aim is to bring together researchers, scholars and McLuhan Fellows to reflect on different aspects of McLuhan’s contribution. The conference in Barcelona will be networked to a series of conferences that are going to take place in Toronto, Berlin and Rome in other dates, to celebrate the 100 Anniversary of McLuhan.

This is an excellent opportunity not only to review McLuhan’s thought but also to update them in relation to contemporary questions centred in the digital forms of production, co-production and consumption of intelligence, memory, self, identity, desire, body, art, design, collaboration and technology in the society of knowledge. Authors are encouraged to submit previously unpublished papers/abstracts to the topics that are being addressed by the conference.

http://www.mcluhangalaxy.net/

Swags for the Homeless #Australia #homeless #gifts #geekgirl

Swag

 I was really impressed to see that finally some worthwhile effort, design, technology and thought had been put into something comfortable, portable and practicle for Homeless people.

With a compelling headline of cardboard box, cement … or dignified backpack. The Swag may yet take on .. and at least serve to create some temporary comfort zone.

The statistics for homeless people are staggering, and as we draw closer to the holiday season perhaps we can all spare buying those expensive and futile gifts and give to people who really need it.

I really love these swags.

#Melbourne. DUST & ILLUSIONS. A Burning Man #Film #geekgirl

Melbourne. DUST & ILLUSIONS. A Burning Man Film
 
More Info GET TICKETS now: ($18 presales, $20 door)
http://dustandillusions.com/blog/melbourne-screening-dec-15th-2010

Dusts & Illusions
A Documentary film by Olivier Bonin. Madnomad Films 2009
…
Exploring the deep origins of the annual BURNING MAN festival Dust & Illusions examines the evolution of the largest counter-culture festival in North America from the 1970s until today.

Using rare and unseen archival footage, including interviews of the founders, artists and participants, Dust & Illusions reveals long-forgotten events and memories of key participants that shaped and influenced the festival in powerful ways.

Bringing a critical perspective, Dust & Illusions analyses the development of culture, art and community as experienced by the participants of BURNING MAN.

Screening ONE night only!
Wednesday, December 15 · 9:00pm – 11:00pm
Location Kino Cinemas
45 Collins Street
Melbourne, Australia

View the Trailers here: http://dustandillusions.com/trailers

Third Dimension – Arts Project Australia #Melbourne

Terry Williams Not titled (green animal/man)
2010 ceramic
26 x 9 x 8.5cm

Third Dimension runs until – 27 November 2010
Arts Project Australia

A sensorial extravaganza, Third Dimension encourages people to engage with art through touch, sound and sight.

The exhibition invites us to consider alternative ways in which art can engage, excite and inspire.

Participating Artists
Alan Constable, Valerio Ciccone, Paul Hodges, Ruth Howard, Kate Knight, Chris Mason, Kaye McDonald, Cameron Noble, Jodie Noble, Tim Noble, Chris O`Brien, Lisa Reid, Rebecca Scibilia, and Terry Williams.

Curated by artsworkers Katie Jacobs and Bernadette Trench-Thiedeman.

Arts Project Australia is a not-for-profit organisation and has been promoting and developing the work of artists with an intellectual disability for 35 years.

Australia Day Film Competition – How would you capture the Reel Australia? #competition #film #geekgirl

Australia Day Film Competition
Entries Close: Friday December 3
www.aussievault.com.au

How would you capture the Reel Australia?

The Australia Day Council of NSW (ADCNSW) has launched the inaugural Reel Australia Short Film competition, giving short film enthusiasts across the country the opportunity to be recognised by telling the real Australian story through film.

Proudly supported by the Australian Film Institute (AFI), the ADCNSW is calling on all Australians to grab their video cameras, explore and share their interpretations of who we are as a nation in a two minute film.

“One of Australia’s favorite leisure activities is indeed attending the cinema and Reel Australia arrives amid exciting times as the global box office for this year’s Australian films pushes beyond $100m. We’ll be watching this competition closely, both for compelling reels about what it means to be Australian, but also of course for promising new talent!” says AFI CEO Damian Trewhella.